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2 unusual facts about Karplus–Strong string synthesis


Karplus–Strong string synthesis

The first musical use of the algorithm was in the work May All Your Children Be Acrobats written in 1981 by David A. Jaffe, and scored for eight guitars, mezzo-soprano and computer-generated stereo tape, with a text based on Carl Sandburg's The People, Yes.

Alex Strong and Kevin Karplus realized that the Karplus-Strong algorithm was physically analogous to a sampling of the transversal wave on a string instrument, with the filter in the feedback loop representing the total string losses over one period.


Arnold Karplus

With the occupation and annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Arnold and Else Karplus moved to New York in 1939, following their son Gerhard and their daughter Ruth.

Robert Karplus

Karplus continued his work at the highest level in theoretical physics for more than 10 years, at Harvard from 1950 to 1954 and then at the University of California, Berkeley, publishing 50 research papers, mostly in QED but also in other areas of physics, including the Hall effect, Van Allen radiation, and cosmic rays.

Karplus’ new passion coincided, serendipitously, with the post-Sputnik wave of efforts to upgrade US science education.


see also